


The Chocolate Affair

by Losille



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, London, Other, Spy - Freeform, affair, very light D/s
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:11:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Losille/pseuds/Losille
Summary: When a mysterious—and gorgeous—stranger sends dessert instead of a customary drink one evening in a bar, Christine Callaghan can’t help but be intrigued, even though she’s on a diet… from men.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Intended this to be a standalone one shot, with the possibility of more if it was well received. However, considering the response I got from a few lines, I decided just to go ahead with the full length story I had in mind. Also, it’s a new tense I don’t write in, so hope all is okay. Thanks for reading, everyone!

No one expects to spend their honeymoon alone, in London, reading spy novels and eating dinner—also alone—at a bar. At least, I didn’t. I thought I’d be on a golden beach somewhere, soaking in the warm sun during the day, and having outrageous honeymoon hotel sex with my husband at night.

Funny how things happen, right?

Okay, maybe not. I’m certainly not laughing. I still want to murder my once affianced, but the potent wine the bartender keeps pouring seems to be deadening my senses and my general distaste for matrimony. The words on my Kindle are beginning to blur and my head feels mushy, hazy, and comfortably numb around the edges. I’m not drunk—no, just buzzed and happier than I’ve been since discovering my dirtbag ex fucking my _mother_ in a janitor closet at our rehearsal dinner.

Yeah. That happened. You’re probably thinking, “Whoa, call Jerry Springer! Maury Povich! We got a white trash trailer park family here!”

Contrary to popular belief, no, this stuff doesn’t only happen to the less fortunate of society. It happens to the ignorant. And you can be as rich as sin and still be the most ignorant person in the world. I mean, just look at the American president.

My mom isn’t, in fact, my sister cousin, or whatever hick thing you might think about us. She’s just my mom, for better or for worse—mostly worse right now. I grew up in a solidly upper-middle class American family. She’s a high school math teacher, Dad’s a corporate lawyer. My siblings and I went to the best schools. We’re successful people with a lot of potential. We just have a really fucked up family, and, as I was so blissfully unaware until a few weeks ago, it’s easy to ignore if you don’t really want to see it.

I didn’t.

That is, of course, until you’re hit square in the head with your mother’s bra. The same bra your fiancé had just flung toward the door of said janitor’s closet. I had thought, in the dim light provided by a single bulb overhead, that my mom had a banging body for someone of her age.  Then I realized _why_ I was taking stock of her reasonably well kept physical attributes.

Long story short, that’s how you end up in London on your honeymoon. Being ignorant. Or something.

I guess it doesn’t really matter after your fourth glass of wine. As I polish off the fifth, the barman returns with bottle in hand. I shake my head and put my palm over the top of the glass. “Water, please?”

“Sure,” he says. “Anything else? Dessert, perhaps?”

He knows. He’s seen enough heartbroken people come through his bar to last a lifetime. I give him a small smile. Of _course_ I want dessert. Alcohol and chocolate never fail me. They, like the bartender, understand me. “Try me again in fifteen minutes? Let me finish off this chapter.”

He disappears down the bar to help another customer and I return to James Bond and his exploits. It’s not long after that I’m finishing a short second chapter and a large white plate slides into view to my right.

A mound of chocolate cake rests in the middle of intricate swoops and loops of raspberry coulis; spun sugar floats above it in a wispy golden nest. Mixed berries masquerade as tiny multi-colored eggs resting inside it. The confection looks positively divine, but I’m still confused.

“I didn’t—”

Barman Joe shakes his head. “Compliments of the gentleman at the end of the bar.”

I frown. Oh, great. Just what I need. Should I tell Joe to warn the guy that I’m not going to be the best company? I look anyway, because I’ve never been immune to curiosity. Even though I know it always kills the cat.

Fortunately, I still have a few lives left to use; I’m the proverbial cat.

Sitting at the end of the long—and surprisingly empty— bar is a god. Or, at least, a man I suspect to be a god, or somehow celestial in nature, considering his face might as well have been carved out of the same marble as Michelangelo’s _David_. He’s all angles, lean muscled and golden kissed, as though he has just returned from riding a chariot close to the sun.

Another man might be compelled to sit up straight and preen, once the woman he’s hitting on finally notices him. Not this guy. He sits completely still and stares, bright blue-green eyes—yes, those are gorgeous and easy to see, from my spot—blinking slowly. He has already preened, or maybe he’s just in a constant state of preen, but he makes it seem like it’s completely natural. There’s no over jelled, over tanned, over grown Jersey Shore man-child there. His silent confidence is staggering. It borders on arrogance, but never fully approaches it.

And, damn it, it’s pretty fucking alluring.

Then again, it could just be the alcohol talking. I turn back to Joe and motion with my fingers. “Two spoons, please.”

Dutiful Joe procures the appropriate silverware and hands them to me. I stuff my Kindle into my purse and sling it over my shoulder before grabbing the plate and my water. And I’m off. I don’t know why I’m going to him. It’s stupid. Men are stupid. That’s why I’m in London, of all places, but he pulls me to him like a comet stuck in Earth’s gravitation.

I set my things down, noticing the way his pursed lips turn up slightly into an assessing smile as I saunter over to him. He seems to appreciate what he sees; I don’t know why. I didn’t exactly dress up tonight. In fact, I didn’t bring any nice clothing with me, not caring to attract the attention of random men in bars.

He stands to greet me, like we’re in some strange historical romance.  A stiff and uncomfortable moment passes as I try to remember where I am and what I’m doing. This is ridiculous. Okay, even _if_ the standing to greet me means he’s a gentleman, it doesn’t mean anything else. I hate men, right?

“Hello, darling,” he says in a dangerous rumbly purr.

Be still my cold, dead heart. “Hi.”

Classic opening line, if I do say so myself. I gulp and glance up at him. He’s tall, over six foot, and despite his lean appearance and godliness, he seems corporeal and solid with wide shoulders and a trim waist. He’s warm, too; I can feel the heat of his body standing a foot away from him.

I wonder, fleetingly, what it would be like to touch him. I already know the answer, though. He’ll burn me. They always do.

“I had intended for the pudding to be yours alone, love,” he says, distracting me from my mind.

His voice. Damn. It’s… I can hardly describe it. The way he forms words with his mouth and then the way they roll off his tongue are like fleeting, enticing caresses. Warming—alarming—caresses in the richest, deepest, and poshest English accent I’ve ever heard. Frankly, it’s like I’m being dipped in chocolate sauce with every syllable.

I shake my head at him. “No, you have to share it with me. You’re the one who did this.”

He doesn’t seem entirely upset at the prospect, but I wonder idly if maybe he’s one of those guys who feeds people and gets off on it. Of course he’d have to be twisted _somehow_. No one’s perfect. Not even this glorious, sun kissed god of a man.

Or, perhaps, I read him wrong and he doesn’t want further contact with me.

He finally sits down in his seat and grabs a spoon. He holds it up for me to see. “I’ve never been one to resist a good pudding. Fair warning, however. I’m not liable to stop once I start.”

For a minute, I think he’s talking about something else entirely. I roll my eyes and settle into the seat beside him, feeling the weight of his eyes as I do. He shifts on his bar stool and grabs the unused spoon, pushing it into my fingers.

“Thanks,” I mutter through dry lips.

He grins again. “You first.”

“Cheers!”

I clink my spoon with his and dig in with relish. Gooey chocolate sauce spills out onto the plate and coats the spoon and cake. My first bite is hot melted chocolate heaven. It’s not too sweet, but not bitter like dark chocolate, either. The tart fruit breaks up the heaviness of the cake. And there’s a hint of hazelnut. Perhaps Nutella? I flick my tongue across my bottom lip to grab a small drop of sauce that didn’t land in my mouth.

I’m close enough to him that I watch his pupils dilate and nostrils flare. So he’s not feeding me to be kind. He wants more. I’m interested, too, but not an idiot.

“You should know I’m on a diet,” I interject between delicious bites.

A curious brow raises. “A diet?”

I laugh and add, “From men.”

His curious frown falls into a devilish smirk. “There’s nothing wrong in looking at the menu, though, is there?”

“Perhaps,” I breathe.

Then he leans in, close enough that I catch a whiff of his cologne—bright, citrusy, but masculine and heady. Expensive. But then, I realize, there’s not much about him that screams _cheap_. His fancy navy suit fits him perfectly, a silver tie bar adorns the sedated but fashionable tie. This is a man who has access to the finest of luxuries.

“ _Perhaps_ ,” he imitates me. A wicked gleam shines in his eyes. “I hear cheat days are beneficial to the long-term success of diets.”

God, he’s good. _Too_ good. Smooth. Like the chocolate cake I’m shoveling into my mouth to keep a whimper at bay. The cake beckons to keep eating; the intensity of his gaze refuses to relinquish control of my functions. Clearly, he doesn’t need a verbal acknowledgement to know how he’s affected me.

He laughs a deep, low rumble in the back of his throat. Glances away, trying to seem sheepish. But I know, somehow within the few minutes we’ve chatted, that he’s not sheepish. There’s no way he can hide it. He fills up a room—and certainly fills up the space between us—with his sizable charisma.

“Tom,” he says, extending his hand. That, too, is perfect. Long fingered, elegant and manicured.

I swallow a bite and set the spoon down. Take a drink of water, dab my mouth. Like my mom taught me as a little girl. “I’m, uh… I’m Christine.”

The grip on my hand is strong and sure. I can’t ignore the pleasurable sizzle.

“Christine?” My name sounds positively sinful rolling out of his mouth. “Beautiful.”

The name or—

“What brings you to my fair city, Christine?”

Somehow, I think he has an idea. I get the impression he does, at least. I don’t know why, though. Maybe he’s used to picking up sorry looking winos in bars.

“Wanted to get away,” I answer. Succinct. Non-committal. Let him think what he wants.

A wan smile ghosts across his lips. “Not with your husband?”

The word is like ice on my warming nerves. I stiffen and set my spoon down on the plate with a clatter. “How could you possibly…”

He reaches between us and touches my left hand, lifting the fingers into brighter light. I see, then, the band of pale ivory skin once covered with the diamond solitaire from my ex. I don’t tan well—or at all, really—being a true redhead, but the change in skin color is noticeable. Pulling my fingers from his unsettling grip, I clasp my hands together in my lap and move away from him.

“We weren’t married,” I explain.

Tom doesn’t retreat. He invades, pushing further into my space, not letting go. “A certifiable tosser, then, not to see the jewel he had.”

I smile despite the tension in my shoulders. People have said this to me in variations, ad nauseum, since it happened, but it’s one of those pleasantries people say because there’s nothing else socially acceptable to say. It’s supposed to make me feel better. It does nothing but slap another tiny Bandaid on top of the giant fucking hole in my chest where my heart used to beat.

Yet, I believe Tom. He’s serious. Maybe trying to get in my pants, only, but the sincerity he’s able to conjure in his tone puts a sizable gauze bandage over my wounds. One large enough to stanch the excessive bleeding.

My face burns with a blush and I turn away from him for just a moment to force my emotions away. I’m torn between lusting after this guy and bawling my eyes out again and then hitting something—a lot—to relieve my pent-up anger.

Tom is relentless in his pursuit and I feel the soft pads of his fingers on my cheek, gently pressing until I look back at him.

“Forget him,” he implores. “He wasn’t good enough for you.”

I give him a watery laugh and swallow around the lump in my throat. Whatever heat he’d built in me is now a smoldering ember about to be snuffed out, not the kindling just catching fire. It doesn’t extinguish entirely, though.

“I know he wasn’t,” I offer.

Then I think it’s strange that he would care so much or put such time into this subject. If he’s interested in a one night stand, he doesn’t need to know. People don’t care. They meet at the bar, romance each other, and do their thing without thinking of the consequences. It’s up to the individual person to stop the chase if they’ve got someone waiting back home.

What’s he looking for, anyway?

“Listen,” I hear myself saying, “the dessert was a lovely gesture, but I really need to get back up to my room.”

If he was a cockatoo, he’d be folding his brilliant yellow crest back up with his other feathers right now. Instead he saves face and pouts playfully. “So soon?”

Clearly, he expects to move further.

I shrug. “I’ve had too much wine. I don’t trust myself… and I have an early morning tour tomorrow.”

Tom removes his palm from my cheek, but not before carefully pushing a long strand of hair behind my ear. His water-blue eyes assess me again—really look—connecting freckles across my nose and memorizing the slope of my jaw, the fullness of my lips. At least, that’s how I feel under his unrelenting attention. No man has ever looked at me so thoroughly. He’s utterly enchanting.

He sticks his hand inside his coat and withdraws a white linen card, placing it face down on the bar. Next from the pocket is a pen—one of those fancy fountain pens with a wooden body, not a cheap plastic BIC, because why the fuck not—and he quickly scribbles on the paper. He slides it across the bar to me.

“I have this thing tomorrow,” he says, “and I find myself without a companion for the evening.”

I look down at the business card and gulp. Time and address. And a cell phone number.

My logical brain is screaming NO! but everything else that makes me a woman is screaming FUCK YES! and I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

Tom shakes his head. “Nothing untoward, I promise. There will be others there, so you needn’t feel singled out. Think of it as an opportunity to meet the locals.”

“What’s it for?” I ask, my interest somewhat piqued now. Oh, who am I kidding? It was already piqued, but I can’t help all the warning bells going off in my head.

He smiles. It’s a trustworthy smile. One of those expressions that makes people believe you. On him, it’s also dangerous. I know—I sense—there are Important Facts he’s not telling me. Am I selling myself to the devil or is he an angel offering salvation?

“A private dinner for my friends.”

“Yeah, because that doesn’t sound ominous,” I say. “I’m not going to end up as dinner, am I?”

Tom throws his head back in gleeful laughter. Then he quiets and leans forward until he’s close enough that all I smell are the citrus notes in his cologne and all I feel is warmth radiating off his skin. A stubbly jaw rasps against my cheek as he lowers his voice to a whisper beside my ear.

“Only if you want to be dinner.”

A quiver of need shoots through my body and explodes out through my fingers, my toes, forces me to clench my thighs together. This is so wrong, but I can’t help myself. A part of me wants no strings mindless sex with a god, if only to get the ex fully out of my system. Another part of me knows I’m not this woman. After all, isn’t that why my fiancé slept with my mother? He agrees I’m a “frigid bitch.”

“Think about it,” he says, this time at a regular volume as he moves away and stands. I watch his elegant fingers fiddle with the buttons on his jacket as he secures it around his torso. “If you show up, I’ll be happily surprised. If you don’t, no hard feelings.”

I open my mouth to say something else, but I realize there’s nothing to say as he throws a wad of cash on the bar for both of our bills and thanks Joe.

“If you do decide to come, wear a black cocktail dress,” he says like it’s an ordinary thing telling someone what to wear. “Oh, and heels.”

“Are you kidding me?” I ask suspiciously, but I can’t ignore the second quiver centering low in my abdomen, clenching the glorious muscles there. I’ve never had a man instruct me on what I should wear, but there’s something sexy and challenging in his tone. Something commanding—and yes, dangerous again—that makes me more than a little curious. It makes me want to run right out to the nearest dress shop and find what he wants.

I lift the back of my hand to my forehead. Nope, not hot. I can’t possibly be suffering fever-induced delusions.

He’s leaving then, with a quick wink. The man glides through the maze of tables toward the door like he owns the place. He’s all confidence and grace, even with his long, potentially gangly limbs.  I wonder if he does, in fact, own the hotel bar; I turn the card over and look at the other side.

Hiddleston Group LTD. It doesn’t explain anything other than his ownership of the company, or at least his position as chief officer. Judging by the way he acts and how he dresses, I don’t need more information, though I know I’m going to go right up to my hotel room and do an extensive Google background search on the guy. A girl can never be too safe.

I reach for my things and sling my purse over my shoulder. Joe catches my glance and wastes no time stepping over to me. “Hey, Joe?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“That guy—”

“Tom? Yeah?”

I look again at the door as though he’s still there. He isn’t. Then I turn to Joe. “Is he, er… does he do this often?”

Joe shakes his head emphatically. “He’s in here all the time meeting business clients, but you are the first proposition in the year I’ve been employed here.”

My trust in men lacking, I still find it difficult to believe a man like Tom isn’t picking women up left and right whenever he’s out and about. Especially since he seems incredibly practiced in the art of the pick-up. Though, I remember, he did almost fail with me.

“I don’t know a ton about him personally,” he replies. “His family is good English stock, I think. He keeps to himself mostly, but he always tips very well. And that always says a lot to me about the type of person you are.”

I agree; having worked my fair share in food service, I am not immune to judging people based on their tipping habits. “Well, thanks, anyway.”

“No problem,” he says. “Have a good night.”

He turns around to attend a new person at the bar and I wave him off. My stomach is alternately tied up in knots and doing somersaults of anticipation. I want to throw caution to wind and see where this takes me—even if it is just an elaborate plan to woo me into bed—but I can’t fully shut down the warning in my head. Something isn’t quite right. No gorgeous guy sidles up to a bar, buys a dumpily dressed girl chocolate, and leaves without a promise of more. No one.

Despite Joe’s glowing recommendation, good family and wealth isn’t everything. Hell, my bastard ex came from both, too, the all-American family, and look what happened there.

I clutch the business card in my hands like it’s a lifeline as I step into the elevator up to my floor. I can almost feel the excitement bubbling to life in my hands, at the unknown. My life back home is ordered. Succinct. I don’t do frivolity. I go to work, I come home and feed the cat. Go to bed. Repeat. Here, though, in London, I realize I hold everything at my fingertips. Literally. I’m beholden to no one—no boss, no family, no demanding fiancé. I can just be me. I can experience life.

I can take one humungous risk and go to a dinner party with a god.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying a new “genre” with the romance, so I hope it all works out. All I can say is that Le Carre and Fleming and all the other great spy writers out there have my respect. It’s difficult to sew the threads and then bringing them all together again. Thanks for reading, everyone!

_This is ridiculous_ , I admonish myself, over and over, like it will make a difference. Like it’ll dissuade me from going to dinner tonight, though I’ve already spent a lot of money and I’m already dressed to the nines.  Like I don’t feel a tingle and an ache down low, curling around my center, just thinking about what he might do to me later. Like remembering his voice, low and rumbly and the finest replacement for chocolate sauce, hasn’t already worked me into a knotted tizzy that desperately needs to be unwound.

Who am I kidding, anyway? I’m certainly not fooling Tom. From the moment the bartender set dessert in front of me and told me who it was from, I was his. The worst part is that the cocky bastard knew it, too. Bet on it, even, when he pulled out the business card to scribble a hasty dinner invitation on the back. He read me like a book despite knowing nothing about me.

My fingers tremble at the thought, fumbling the cell phone in my hand as the hotel elevator descends another level. I catch the phone before it hits the ground and quickly stuff it into my new clutch between a tube of crimson lipstick and the linen card bearing the address of my destination. I pause before snapping the purse closure into place, glancing once more at the curvy, tidy scrawl, stark against crisp white, as though I haven’t already memorized every loop and line of his writing or the way the raised lettering of his business information feels against the pads of my fingers. I read it like some lovesick schoolgirl who found a note from her crush in her locker—like someone who isn’t me.

At least, someone I never thought was me.

The elevator doors slide open with a view into the lobby. I suck in a fortifying breath and step out, walking across the cavernous space with only a little hitch in my step when I forget to set my foot down heel first. I hope it’s the only tell that I don’t dress in fancy dresses or walk in heels on the regular—that I don’t belong. In fact, my life doesn’t call for pretty. It calls for utilitarian. For cargo pants and combat boots when I’m on assignment, trousers and suits when I’m at Headquarters. Nothing that costs more than my rent. Nothing that involves jewelry or lacey lingerie.

The doorman opens the huge glass door for me, nodding his head with more deference than he did in the morning. But I suppose wearing schlubby yoga pants and a Georgetown sweatshirt is never a good look for anyone, except for college students, and I’ve been out of school for years now.

He raises a white-gloved hand and signals at an invisible someone in the distance. Seconds later, a sleek black town car slides into an open spot on the curb. “Destination, miss?” he asks, taking the opportunity to look me over, head to toe.

I tug self-consciously on my earlobe before I can stop myself. This is only one reason why I don’t regularly dress like this. I’m not for men’s consumption. Well, maybe I’m for _one_ man’s consumption. Even then, just for a night. And I still feel like a ridiculous imposter, at that.

“Um, Carlton House, Bishops Avenue in Hampstead?” I say with a small, hopeful grin that he understands.

He blinks hard, as though he’s short-circuited and requires a reboot. Then he nods and leans into the driver’s window. “Mr. Hiddleston’s residence, Frank.”

Sneering humor drips off every syllable. It feels slimy and I shift impatiently in my new seat in the back of the vehicle. He knows Tom well, then. But I also know Tom doesn’t own the hotel, though he certainly must provide it regular patronage. Perhaps patronage in a not particularly wholesome way, considering how well the doorman knew the address.

It explains why my Google search turned up scant information on his personal life. He’s photographed several times with other women, but never in a romantic sense. They’re at business functions and fundraising galas. His personal liaisons happen behind closed doors, likely in the confines of this hotel, and the doorman has clearly been around long enough to make assumptions about me.

I don’t know how I feel, being one of many. I don’t know why I thought I wasn’t. Why does it matter, anyway?

The driver bids the doorman farewell and we’re off, speeding toward my destination. I’m glad to be free of the judgement, but I broach the subject with the driver. I have no understanding of self-preservation.

“You know Mr. Hiddleston?” I ask conversationally.

My research didn’t turn up much information, and I don’t have access to the typical databases I do when I’m working. I know that Hiddleston Group is a conglomerate with primary ownership of multiple companies—fairly diversified—with most relating to the food industry. They grow, make, package, ship and distribute. It’s a family business, started sometime during the reign of Queen Victoria. Their business grew from there, into an empire worth billions of dollars, privately owned. Tom is the ranking family member—CEO for five years already and recently ascended the title of the third Baron Hiddleston, after the passing of his father.

“Everyone knows him ‘bout these parts, miss,” he replies with a pleasant smile in his rearview mirror. “His friend, Skarsgård, owns the hotel. So we often have dealings with him. He’s a gentleman, if there ever was one.”

There were many photos of Tom with the tall Swede in my search; I’m already familiar with them. Skarsgård’s family pretty much owns half of Chicago and Sweden, among other locations around the globe like London; I prefer staying in their hotels whenever I’m abroad. Well, abroad on pleasure, not on assignment. His wife, Rory, is an old friend of mine—we haven’t talked since we were eighteen and finished our Junior League debutante duties together. We were in the same deb class, inseparable the summer we spent together, but lost touch when our lives traveled down separate paths. I haven’t had the time to try to contact her. Work keeps me too busy. Judging from the society and gossip pages, her new life on Skarsgård’s arm keeps her pretty busy, as well.

None of this knowledge says much about Tom, himself. Everyone has given me the best reports on his character, but I know there’s something darker about him. Something hidden. A double life, perhaps. It’s my Spidey Sense, I think, tingling in concert with my feminine interest. Part of me wants to give myself completely over to the possibilities of an evening with him, but the other part—the part that works daily with pathological liars—gives me pause. No one is that squeaky clean. Or gorgeous. Or rich… without some sort of skeleton in their closet.

Though I have little self-preservation, I worry I’ve let my anger and hurt after my breakup get the better of me. This isn’t exactly safe, what I’m about to do.

But I’m doing it anyway.

I focus on the road outside my window, letting the conversation with the driver fade. I may have no clue what to expect tonight, but my stomach still bubbles with anticipation. My skin prickles with heat and there’s a constant flutter of anxiety in my chest. Which is absurd. This is a man in want of a woman—lust and sex and nothing more. This isn’t Iraq or Syria. This is a night alone with some stranger I met at a bar. People do it all the time without all this apprehension, so why can’t I?

Blissfully, our ride is short once we’re north of Regent’s Park; I don’t have time to fret more than I already have. Huge wrought iron gates stand open and welcoming as the car pulls into a paved sandstone drive. A small keypad and speaker sits just on the outside, so I know the gates are not usually left in this state.

A man wearing all black and sporting an earpiece steps in front of the car, bathed in the white headlights. Security. He doesn’t seem to be carrying a sidearm, but there are a million places to hide one on the human body when fully clothed. Not that the guard would need a gun; he is large enough muscularly to snap me like a twig, and that’s saying a lot. I’m not thin and willowy like a model. And I know how to fight. I’m not a delicate flower.

He stops beside the car as I roll the window down and ducks his head to get a full visual of my eyes and face. It serves two purposes: one, to see if he knows me already and if I’m an approved guest or, two, to memorize my face in case he needs to find me in a line up after tonight.

“Name?”

“Um, Christine,” I say.

He doesn’t look at the list of names on his clipboard. “Ah, yes, Ms. Callaghan. May I see your identification, please?”

A thrill of icy discomfort curls up my back. He knows my surname; I don’t remember saying anything to Tom about it. But then again, there was the wine. Anything is possible; it’s possible that I don’t remember giving my last name, but I know it’s unlikely that I would forget doing so. Which means he also conducted a background search on me or, at the very least, convinced someone at the hotel to find a Christine in their guest roster.

I dig into my clutch and pull my passport from it. He uses a small Maglite to look at the information, then up at me again. He slips the flashlight back onto his belt and smiles politely. There’s no question he could hurt me, but he’s pleasant. Not one of those hardboiled bodyguards you always see depicted in Hollywood films.

“Have a wonderful evening, Ms. Callaghan,” he says, waving my driver through the gates.  

I roll up the window and sit back again in my seat, facing forward. It’s strange to me that Tom requires the use of a guard posted outside—he deals in foodstuffs and shipping. Yes, he’s obscenely wealthy, and I know of many wealthy people requiring advanced protection of varying forms because unscrupulous people extort money by threatening bodily harm. However, I didn’t suspect that he required such close personal protection. Especially since he was at the bar alone last night.

The car pulls forward onto an expansive and curved drive lined with shiny cars from a gaggle of European luxury brands. A few are simple town cars and limousines, a group of dark-suited chauffeurs congregating together near one vehicle. They act like they know each other, beyond that peculiar acquaintance of professional brotherhood. Like their employers are often invited to the same parties and they’re forced to sit around and twiddle their thumbs together while they wait.

My driver jumps lightly out of his seat once he pulls to a stop and hops to around to my door; he opens it with a flourish and waves his hand. “Ma’am?”

I barely contain a laugh. Now I _know_ this is absurd. Everything about this is absurd. And yet, I carefully swing my legs out and step out—remembering to keep both knees together lest I flash the driver with the incredibly overpriced lingerie I purchased on a whim this afternoon, using the money I got after selling my engagement ring.

The driver extends a white card from his coat, flipping it over in his hand to reveal his contact information. “If you require a return trip, please do not hesitate to ring me.”

“Thank you,” I say and quickly stuff it into my clutch, beside the other card.

I’m in a strange world now, one full of white cards, fancy suits, and expensive vehicles.

The other chauffeurs are watching, sizing me up. Maybe they look down on me because I’ve arrived in a hotel livery car, not my own car with my own employee. Or maybe they just like the slit up the back of my dress, that extends from the unsexy backs of my knees up to the posterior that requires long hours in a gym to maintain.

I give my hips an exaggerated sway, just in case, and toddle up to a front door painted with white lacquer. It seems normal, almost. Like the front of a handsome brownstone in DC, my home. In fact, the front of the building seems just as sophisticated and compact—not sprawling and ostentatious like I expected to find at the end of the road.

The door opens before I make it to the top step, and for a moment, I don’t see anyone behind it. Then a man, older and with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair steps into view. He wears a suit well, his posture ramrod straight, his squinty brown eyes laser focused on me. Military, maybe. He’s not a guard like the one at the gate, but I’ve been around military for a while now and their physical bearing it unmistakable. Especially career military.

He stands back and nods his head. “Ms. Callaghan, welcome.”

I take it as my cue and step into an echoing foyer. Slick marble covers the floor and gives way to clean, detailed wainscoting and crown molding in varying shades of taupe. A relaxing color, they say; it certainly softens the otherwise austere space. Flecks of gold glitter in the gray and white marble, adding opulence despite its sparse decoration. It trails up two staircases on either side of the door with black wrought-iron bannisters. A slim crystal chandelier, the length of one-and-half-stories, hangs in the center of the room over a large mahogany table bearing a gigantic spray of white flowers. Pretty, simple, clean. Not what I pictured from the man I met at the bar, but it’s still beautiful without being completely tawdry.

My greeter clears his throat and I snap to attention, realizing I let my mind wander. I can’t let this happen in a strange place. I need to be on guard.

“I’m Stewart, Mr. Hiddleston’s butler.”

“Stewart: surname or first name?”

His eyes light, as though surprised. “Surname.”

“Military?”

“Royal Air Force,” he answers, but he doesn’t relax his stiff back. “You?”

“Not me,” I reply. “But I work with them.”

He nods his head and starts to open his mouth. A door across the foyer opens and reveals another large room, this one with people. Their talking tumbles out onto the reflective marble and amplifies and muddles together. Another servant—server?—of some kind is the one holding the door open, along with a silver tray of empty champagne glasses. The server buttons up his posture under Stewart’s eye. Some of the people in view of the door see us, crane their necks around to get a better view at the newcomer.

“Please, Ms. Callaghan, Mr. Hiddleston is in a meeting now, but he asks that you make yourself comfortable,” Stewart says, guiding me into the room.

When I was seven, my Dad moved our family from Georgia to Washington DC for a new job.  I hated leaving my friends and I was petrified my first day of school. I still remember walking into my new classroom, clutching my backpack to my chest as though it were the stuffed teddy I’d left sitting on my bed at home. The anxiety and thrill of meeting new people was eclipsed by their assessing stares—only made worse by one girl in the class, you know the one with blonde hair and all the friends—making a comment about my Pokémon shirt and my terrible pageboy haircut.

That’s what this is like.

But worse.

Because I know how horrible adults are. It’s not just kids being kids.

I’m an interloper, a newbie. I don’t think it’s because they know I don’t have tons of money in a bank account, but more the fact that I’ve never met any of them and they don’t suffer new people well. It goes back to that need for personal protection; unknown people are people to be wary of.

They’re all wearing black, though the men have white dress shirts beneath their jackets, and they’re all beautiful in some way. Maybe not classically, but wealth has the power to make anyone pretty. Also, there seems to be a disproportionate number of women to men—specifically tall, leggy models with revealing dresses and sparkling jewels dripping off them.

I stop my perusal, almost instantly, when my gaze lands on a short woman with deep red hair piled high on her head. I didn’t initially see her, because she’s partially hidden by a large lamp while gazing up at a canvas on the wall. My heart jumps to my throat when realization slams into me. It couldn’t be—

“Rory Fisher?” I wheeze.

The room quiets. The woman whips around, revealing a large pregnant belly and larger green eyes.

“Christine?” Confusion riddles her soft features for a split second, then her eyes widen and she moves across the floor quickly for a very pregnant woman. “Oh my god, Christine! What are you doing here?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” I answer under my breath. Then I throw my arms around her neck, hoping she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t, and hugs me close.

She steps back again and holds my face between her hands, smooshing my cheeks like my grandmother always does if it’s been awhile since a visit. Rory’s looking at me closer, inspecting me, making sure I really am the Christine she remembers. Apparently, I pass muster because she smiles. “You’re wearing a dress.”

“I know,” I say, putting my hand on my hip. I strike a silly pose. “Can you believe it?”

“I believe it about as much as I believe you’re standing here, of all places in the world!” she says. “I’ve missed you so much! We have so much to catch up on.”

It’s like no time has passed. Like she didn’t go to college back home in Georgia, and I didn’t attend Georgetown and then basically cut everyone but family out of my life when I joined the Agency.

“It’s nice to have a friendly face in a pack of wolves,” I mutter.

Rory loops her arm with mine. “They’re puppies, believe me.”

With the sudden appearance of my long-lost friend, I forget. I forget the people staring at me. I forget why I’m standing in the middle of a lavish sitting room. I forget that somewhere there’s a man who may or may not know I’ve taken him up on his scandalous offer.

It’s blissful, forgetting.

Until it all comes crashing back down with a clatter of the door opening again. New excitement ripples through the room. Three well-suited men push inside, one of them Rory’s husband. The fourth—the last to arrive from his meeting, which I suspect involved these other men—is my date. Everyone else is smiling and chatting, but the wind’s knocked from my sails.

He’s more gorgeous, more golden, than I remember. The suit he wears is all black, in keeping with the apparent theme, and it makes him seem incredibly powerful. Makes him look taller, his chest larger, shoulders wider. The navy suit of yesterday was business attire, something worn for work. My memory of it tarnishes in the image of this. This black one is a statement. Like James Bond. Or maybe Bond’s sexiest villain, only way, way better.

Whatever it is about him, his eyes finally land on mine. A slow smile curves his lips and heated intensity fills his blue-green gaze as he looks me over, head to toe. He’s even more appreciative than last night, I think, when he finishes his lengthy perusal and finds my own eyes.

He closes the gulf between us, and I’m immediately struck by the fact that I don’t know how to greet him. I’m not at all familiar with him outside of a fifteen-minute conversation at a bar. We don’t know each other well enough for a friendly hug, but we’re past awkwardly shaking hands in greeting. My expectations of the evening include ending up in his bedroom, so does that place me in some other category of familiarity?

The muscles in my neck tense with nerves, though I try to will them away. Not for the first time in my life, I wonder why it’s so difficult to interpret the situation and find the suitable response. Other people, like Tom, like my ex, have it in spades—an easy charisma with anyone—and they intrinsically know how to handle any given situation.

I do not, and never have. 

I know, deep down, why I have so much trouble. Because it’s _me_. I’m not hiding behind a diplomatic function with immunity, or an assumed name and history. It’s far easier being social while playing a role. Any misstep is a misstep of the character, of that legend, and never a reflection on me, personally.

Part of me regrets not giving him one of my aliases, but last night’s wine well and truly clouded my judgement. I hadn’t thought. I’d dropped my guard. And now he wants Christine at his party, and I have no idea if he, or _I_ , can handle it. How can I when I can barely sort out how I’m supposed to greet the man? If I’m having doubts about who I think I am?

Maybe he senses my awkwardness, but he comes in close, giving me no opportunity to make up my mind. An arm twines around me and a large hand rests on the small of my back. His palm sears into my skin, into my memory, through the delicate silk blend dress. Strong fingers clench slightly, shooting beams of heat straight from their tips to my core.

The warmth from his proximity relaxes my tension, even though I’m still on high alert and now the center of everyone’s attention again. Questions murmur through the room, but Tom interrupts my focus by leaning in to whisper something in my ear. Though he’s clean shaven this evening, his chin still rasps tantalizingly across my jaw. His soft breathing ruffles my hair and I can practically feel the smile on his lips—he’s close enough to complete contact and kiss me, but he doesn’t. God, and he smells amazing. Like oranges, fresh but with a note of sweetness. 

“I’m extremely happy you could come,” he says softly, just enough for me to hear, with an added inflection on ‘come’.

My mind no longer worries about the other people watching me. Instead, I’m fully invested in him and the way he teases with barely touching, or not at all. His words and glances have enough heat in them to make them feel like pleasurable strokes on my skin. He’s more skilled at this than I am.

A quiver runs up my back, strong enough that I know he feels the reaction. His deep voice rumbles in a chuckle beside my ear. The hand on my back slips further around my hip and possessively pulls my body hard against his side. Lean ridged muscle and soft tailored suit rubs against me through my dress, inflaming and arousing me in the strangest way. I have no option but to rest my own hand on his back, setting palm flat against his shoulder blade closest to me then wrapping my fingers on top of his shoulder. If he gets to be too much to handle, I suppose I can just Vulcan nerve pinch him from this position.

I laugh at my thought and turn to look up at him, finding him watching me get comfortable with interest. How is it possible to feel so small beside him even though I am the thickest woman in the room, apart from a pregnant lady? His lips twitch with mirth. “Have you met everyone?”

“Uh, no,” I say. “But I know Rory, actually.”

His smile says he knew that already. I figure it must have been in whatever dossier his security team put together on me; I’m intrigued by the work they’ve been able to do in so little time. I’m also more than a little guarded about exactly what they might know. Rory is easy enough to find in my past, but there are other parts of my life I don’t want or need them to know.

“Really?” he says with a wink. At least he doesn’t try to hide it.

Then I wonder what it must be like for him, if he must vet every person he dates or sees behind closed doors. Of course, I know the real-world reasons behind it. But are there really that many people out there who might want to cause him—or his friends—harm? My experience tells me that if that’s the case, then there’s more I don’t know. More about his life and more about his invitation. He’s hiding something, but what? Something dark? Something illegal? Both?

I want to know, but I don’t want to know. I’m on vacation, not on the clock. I came tonight with the idea that I could have a night to work my ex out of my system. But this is turning into more and more of a setup, as though I am nothing more than a mark. He’s grooming me, earning my confidence. Or using one of the oldest tricks in the book to get something from me.

Or, maybe, I’m letting my mind run away with me. It’s difficult to trust anyone in my life unless they’re fellow officers at the Agency. That’s why I chose to marry one—and he made it worse. He blew my trust to smithereens with his actions.

I know to tread lightly, keep our conversation on the surface. There’s nothing Tom can blackmail me with in my past; I lead such a boring life outside of my profession—where everything is redacted or coded to protect me—that there can’t be anything he’ll find to hurt me. The only way that’ll be a problem is if I let him actually get to know _me_. Since that’s not what this was ever about, then it shouldn’t be a problem.

I won’t _let_ it become a problem. It’s dinner and sex, and nothing else.

He shifts beside me and I look up at him again, trying to find the answers in his eyes. They’re focused on me and heavy-lidded, but there’s not much else I can glean from him. Maybe it’s just about sex with him, too. Maybe this is only a part of his game, of a need to feel power or dominance over someone.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Stewart step into the room. With only a look at Tom, Tom inclines his head and then turns to the rest of his guests, who I realize I haven’t been introduced to yet. “I think dinner is served, everyone. If you’ll follow me to the dining room.”

I take a calming breath and follow beside him, his grip on my body protective and unyielding. Though I can’t trust, I do have hope. And there’s a part of my hope that centers on the way he holds me. That it means he’s not a bad person, or that he specifically targeted me to get something.

I hope.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! 
> 
>  
> 
> [Character Bios](http://losille2000.tumblr.com/tagged/tca-bio)

I’m the center of attention at dinner, and there’s no way of escaping it.

From the moment Tom introduces me, all the way to dessert, his curious friends find plenty of moments to pepper and pressure me into answering questions about myself. Questions I have no want to answer, but I scramble and scrape something together to force them to move on, relying heavily on what I can remember about developing proper cover on the fly from my time training at The Farm.

I’m not overly skilled in certain aspects of spy tradecraft. My specific talents lie in looking at the bigger picture, decoding bits of information, mining into peoples’ minds and histories to find the best avenues for Operations to pursue. My official title—Targeting Officer—explains my role simply. I work behind a desk back at Langley, though my team often deploys to the far reaches of the world as needed. Even on location, though, I remain at command headquarters, away from dealing most of the lies required to make a successful and convincing spy.

Even though everyone learns the same things while at The Farm, by the end of training, the commanding officers place cadets in the positions they decide are most appropriate to the cadet’s strengths. I have many strengths… well, all except one.

I’m not a good liar.

This is the first time in a very long time I can stretch these muscles. I hope they pass muster, knowing what kind of scrutiny I’m under from the man sitting beside me. I still can’t help but feel like a phony with these people; I hope my poker face doesn’t slip and reveal anything important.

They say the best lie is the lie that incorporates a bit of the truth, so I stick to that, mostly. Where do I work? Oh, a humanitarian organization. What do I do? I am a psychologist helping refugees acclimate to their new lives in America and counseling aid workers coping with the horrors of war. They tell me how interesting and important the work is, like all rich people who don’t know true suffering, and move on to a discussion about their holidays in St. Bart’s and Paris. They don’t really care about the specifics.

I sag back in my seat, relief washing over me. Regrouping would be easier if I excuse myself, but I refuse to move. No one else has left the meal. I glance at Rory and her husband, Alex, who have been quiet most of the night and talking amongst themselves and the couple kitty-corner to them. The man, dark haired and stern, I remember as Armitage. Richard, some sort of banker or hedge fund manager, with a nice lilting accent. His boyfriend, Lee, is American and owner of a chain of restaurants that serve only pies. I want to ask him why pies, but I decide against it because it will invite him to inquire about more with me.

A server walks by and refills my wine glass. I reach for the goblet and lift it to my lips, savoring the fruity flavor by rolling the liquid around my tongue. The warm body beside me turns from his brief conversation with the lady to his right and slips his possessive hand onto my thigh like he owns it.

When I bought the dress, I made sure it covered most of my thighs when I sat, whether I crossed my legs or my ankles. It fit the bill, but rode up just enough to reveal a few inches of skin above my knee.  He found that easily, as though he’s magnetized to the location, his fingertips dancing lightly along the hem and stocking-clad skin. Shivers of pleasure shoot up my leg and coalesce at the already tight ball coiling low in my abdomen.

I shift in my seat, bearing down, nearly grinding on the cushion in a completely unacceptable manner, looking for friction in the place I want it most. A wayward thought crosses my mind: how am I going to handle sleeping with him if this lazy teasing makes me do that?

I gulp down another mouthful of wine and set the glass back on the table, grateful that my movement and his hands are hidden under the crisp linen tablecloth. His fingers slip further inward and finally rest curled around the inside of my thigh, just above the knee. I’d say it was still respectable—possessive, yes—but in the bounds of normal public affection… that is, of course, if my skin didn’t burn where he’d settled his hand. A part of me wants his fingers to slide further up, dragging my skirt along with them, and to dip between my thighs at the apex of my legs.

But even he isn’t that daring with all his friends watching.

Instead, he leans over to me, his breath tickling my ear again. “Don’t drink too much, darling. I want you clear enough to give your consent, so we can properly enjoy each other later.”

I swallow harshly, remembering last night, knowing he is thinking about it as well. I’d used the wine as an excuse to get away from him before I combusted into flames. I wouldn’t be so fortunate this time. I’m already smoldering from the inside out.

“I won’t,” I mutter, feeling heat on my cheeks, quickly assigning it to the wine and not my reaction to him. I’m not some simpering fool.

But damn, he makes it too easy to become one.

Something about his comment makes me pause and consider, though. Did he not push for more last night because I said I had too much to drink? Was he really that much of a gentleman? He seems so secretive now—dark and dangerous—that I don’t know what to truly think about his principles. However, I suddenly find him _more_ attractive now that I realize he didn’t push me. A less honorable man would have pushed. Is this all a part of the game? If so, he’s winning.

“I don’t think I told you how beautiful you are this evening,” he says. One of the fingers on my thigh tickles haphazard shapes on the inside of my knee. Another digit joins in and I fidget awkwardly. I can’t see them, but I feel their length, dexterity, and strength as they tease my flesh.

I suck in a breath and tamp down a shiver. “Better than last night, huh?”

“You were beautiful then, as well,” he adds. “Just as I am sure you will be beautiful with nothing on at all.”

I practically choke on the girlish giggle that rises in my throat. Where the fuck does this man come from? No one talks like this. Maybe it’s his wealth that gives him the privilege of brazenness. Or maybe it’s the power of his position in the world that’s enflamed his arrogance. And yet, somehow, none of it feels repulsive or smarmy. Simply confident and heavy with desire. That he obviously wants me—despite my belief that he singled me out because he’ll want more than my body—confuses me. I’ve never been openly or intentionally pursued romantically.

At least, not to this degree.

I did most of the pursuing with my ex. Not exceptionally beautiful or well known in the circles he traveled, I certainly wasn’t the first choice for a legend like Nathan. I wasn’t even a second or third, either. However, I’d found him both handsome and affable, and I couldn’t shake my attraction to him. My persistence paid off, I thought, when he finally chatted me up one free night while we were all out celebrating moving to the next phase of our training. I didn’t really connect that he only gave me a second look due to the lack of options while we were at The Farm. I was, as it turns out, an easy target for a serial womanizer.

Our relationship just sort of happened and continued only because his family liked my clean, upstanding background. They saw me as the perfect political wife, despite my serious aversion to dresses, big Southern hair, and campaign fundraisers. I was convenient. His perfect cover, both for his job as an Operations Officer and for the future when he took the reins of his family’s political dynasty and ran for a seat in the Senate… or for President. The problem was that I fell in love with him, anyway.

My past makes me wary of my present. Perhaps there’s something more in Tom’s pursuit mixing pleasure with his business. Does he need convenience and respectability, too? Or is it deeper? I can’t deny the flare of his nose or the slightly dilated pupils when he looks at me after I not-so-accidentally brush against his side while we dine. His physical attraction to me is blatant, more than I ever remember experiencing from my ex. What Tom could want from me besides my body, though, I don’t know. I don’t understand. I am outclassed in every sense of the word.

Letting myself fall into the same trap as I did with my ex is a mistake.

 _Tonight_ is a mistake, I know it.

In a week, I return home to my cat and boring apartment, and then go back to work at Langley. My original plans with Tom involve tonight, only, but introducing me to his friends and business partners coupled with the extensive background check he conducted, hint at something else. Something more. Something I’m probably not willing to—or can’t—give him.

Even though I know I can’t give him more, I also can’t find the incentive to leave. I like the glide of his thumb on my thigh too much to push the chair back and beg his forgiveness that I need to return to the hotel. The thrill of the unknown keeps me glued to my spot, trying not to let the entire world know he’s gently moved his hands up a fraction more, pulling at the hem of my skirt until he reaches the lacy edges of my new silk stockings.

I clear my throat and glance at him again, finding a pleased smirk playing at his lips. A moment of frivolity at the lingerie store led me down the path of garters and stockings. Apparently, they’re a hit. Too bad I want him to tear them from my legs later.

Dinner continues with dessert and little more attention is placed on me. We all retreat to the sitting room to relax in our food-induced stupor; some couples beg off for the night, others find seats with coffee and tea to continue the evening. Tom’s hand flattens on the small of my back again and he smiles at me. “Let me go see my guests off and I’ll be back.”

I nod. “Sure.”

He sweeps from the room, and I turn in my spot to look at my options for companionship. Fortunately, I find Rory coming toward me, carefully balancing two delicate cups full of coffee. I’ll need some of the caffeinated fortification if I’m to make it through the night.

She holds one cup out to me. “Here. It’s black, but if I remember correctly, that’s what you take.”

I grin. “The darker the better. If I could mainline it, I would.”

Rory giggled again and looked to the side. “How about we go sit over there?”

Spinning around, I see a cushioned bench along the wall to the right. It’s in a dim alcove between two slim bookcases, away from the main crowd. I don’t object and follow her over, grateful I don’t have to stand on my heels. I’m still so wobbly on them.

“So,” she says, finally, then sips her coffee. “Is this supposed to be a date?”

“You cut straight to the quick.” I stare at her for a minute. “You’ve changed.”

Rory blushes and ducks her head. “Yeah, well, it’s been a long time, Christine. I’ve grown up a lot. You’ve grown up, too.”

“True.”

“So… are you on a date?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

Rory presses her lips together. “It’s strange, is all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve known Tom well on five years now,” she says. “He’s never openly invited anyone to a dinner like this.”

“He hasn’t?”

Rory shakes her head. “No. I mean, I know he’s never wanted for female company because Alex has told me stories… but he’s never had a companion for a friendly dinner. You know, one he wants other people to meet. How long have you known him?”

“Uh,” I say, looking up at the ceiling and thinking of a clock. “A little over twenty-four hours?”

She splutters into her coffee. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not. We met at the hotel bar last night, and he invited me after a ten-minute conversation. And I stupidly went along with it because I wanted to have some fun.”

Rory frowns into her cup, twisting it around the saucer, watching the ripples forming on the surface. I can tell she wants to say something to me, I hope not to admonish me for jumping into this, but she finally sighs and meets my eyes again. “You should be careful, Christine.”

Her warning sends a chill down my spine. My belly clenches and twists. “Why?”

Rory shrugs. “It feels off.”

“I know.” I nod in agreement. It’s nothing I haven’t already thought. None of this makes sense if all he wanted was a fuck. “Of course, I don’t know Tom like you do, but you’ve confirmed what my gut’s been telling me.”

“I’m not saying be careful because he’s a bad man,” Rory adds, “but he’s also not a saint, either. And things have been weird between Alex and me, too, and it’s always involving Tom. More meetings, more private phone conversations. Alex has always told me everything, but now… I don’t know what’s going on. It’s freaking me out.”

She takes a breath, reining in her sudden overflowing emotion. Her bottom lip quivers, but she bites it away. “And then you show up like a ghost and I’m torn between rejoicing that you’ve come back into my life and being worried about you. There has to be some connection, right? I mean two people out of seven billion don’t just coincidentally meet again unless there’s a reason.”

I set my cup down on the bench beside me and reach out for her, grabbing her free hand between mine. “Don’t worry about me, Rory. I can take care of myself.”

“I know,” she says. “I just don’t want you to get swallowed up. These men—these rich and powerful men—they consume so easily.”

“Trust me, I’ll be fine.”

Will I? I don’t even believe myself. Now that I know my misgivings aren’t completely insane, I can’t help but feel more intrigued by the whole situation. I should take her warning, and my better sense, and call the hotel driver for a pickup. But I don’t. I want—no, _need—_ to release this ache Tom has created in me, and he’s the only one who can do it. Then I’ll leave, and I’ll use my connections to look into what’s going on with Tom and Alex, if only to protect Rory and her children.

But then I stop myself. Why do I believe her? Is it because she _was_ a friend? Should I still believe her? Is she _still_ a friend? We’ve not seen each other in, what?, fifteen years? She could be a spy or a mole or something else, too, for all I know. Someone could have put her up to this, to gain my trust, to get me to let my guard down. So she could get information from me.

Not for the first time, I curse my job. I love it, but I hate it, too. Protecting my country and the people in it is a calling—a passion. But I hate how it fucks with my personal relationships, or, rather, my ability to have them. I can never fully commit to trusting someone.

I want to look at Rory, and share everything with her, but I can’t be the open book I once was.

“Just be careful,” Rory warns again. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you and I didn’t let you know.”

“Thank you.” I pick my coffee up again and quickly swallow what’s left in the cup. One of the servers appears at my elbow and asks if he can take it away.

Rory hands hers off as well and sighs. “Oh, here they come.”

I straighten my back and glance at the rest of the room; it seems to have emptied during our quiet conversation, leaving only Tom and her husband.

“Are you ready to head out, älskling?” Alex asks, leaning over and pressing his lips into the flaming hair on top of her head.  Rory’s eyes flutter closed for the briefest of moments as she leans into the touch of his large hand on her shoulder.

There’s no artifice in his actions or voice. He absolutely loves her and cares about her, so I wonder if Rory’s worries aren’t a little unfounded and somehow related to pregnancy hormones. In fact, I’m a little jealous she has such a secure relationship.

“Sure, I’m pretty tired,” Rory replies and looks at me. “When do you go home, Christine?”

“I’m here for another week.”

A wide grin stretches her lips, the previous worry evaporating from her green eyes. “Awesome! We’re here for a few more days before we head back to Chicago. How about we do a tea or something? I don’t think we’ve had enough time to catch up.”

I read into her words. Of course, I want to spend time with her and see what’s been going on over the last decade and a half, but I also know she wants a full report of what happens after she leaves tonight. I don’t know if I’m willing to be _that_ forthcoming. Especially if this night ends the way I want it to.

As though he knows he has to reassure me, Tom sets his hand at the nape of my neck, fingers lightly digging into my bare flesh as he stills. An electric frisson shakes through me and I look to both pairs of eyes staring back at us. Alex wears a silly wolfish grin. Rory chuckles and turns to her husband, offering her hand for help up from the bench. He takes it without a second thought, as though he was born to be his wife’s helper. I watch them as he bundles her to his side and treats her like spun glass.

I could be wrong—in fact, I’ve been wrong before—but body language is always a dead giveaway when it comes to reading between the lines of what motivates people. Whatever Rory may be worried about involving Alex and Tom’s business dealings, they have nothing to do with her or Alex intending to hurt her. Sure, she might be an unwitting participant, but the way Alex holds her tells me all I need to know.

“How can I reach you?” Rory asks.

I almost rattle off my cell number, but use the opportunity to test out a theory. “I’m staying at The Greystoke.” I turn and glance at Tom, then to Alex. They’re better than I thought managing their reactions. Tom’s hand, however, does press a little harder at my neck. So he _did_ ask Alex for a little help.

“Really? We’re up in the penthouse,” she says. “Maybe I’ll just waddle down to your room and we can have a girls’ night. What room number?”

“1010,” I reply.

A throat clearing turns our attention toward the sitting room entrance. Stewart is there in all his regimented glory. “Mr. Skarsgård, your driver has just pulled around.”

Alex nods and gently pushes his wife forward. “Thank you, Stewart.”

Tom helps me stand and offers his arm as we follow them out the door and through the foyer. We stand on the stoop and say our farewells, kissing cheeks with promises to meet up again within the next week. Eventually, the car crunches out of the driveway and the large gates swing shut with a metallic clang locking them into place, leaving us alone in a silent, cold London night.

I shift closer to Tom, hoping for his warmth to seep into my chilled skin. He obliges by wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me to him until we’re facing, our bodies pressed together from knee to chest. He’s warm and solid—a tether to my suddenly floating head and hammering heart. We could survive a blizzard on his body heat alone, but combined like this, I feel like I’m on fire, like we could generate enough warmth to end an ice age.

It certainly thaws whatever reservations I have about him, at least for a little while. I’m sure the cold will return once more during the night, after we scratch the itch that’s developed between us, but I can’t think about that. I’m going to have some fun. I’m going to live.

“What next?” I ask, my voice coming out throatier than I intended.

His eyes are hooded, watching me, committing me to memory again, as though the previous evening didn’t make enough of an imprint. “Would you care for a tour?”

“Only if it ends in your bedroom.” My palms flatten against his chest, inching north to his tie, that’s moved a bit to the right throughout the evening, a sign that he isn’t perfect. I loosen it, pulling the knot out and leaving the open ends hanging on his chest while I run my fingers down the smooth black silk. “Do you ever loosen up, Tom?”

A puff of warm air ruffles the tendrils of hair on the side of my face. He laughs lightly. “Only in my bedroom.”

“Somehow I think that’s also a lie.”

“Care to find out?”

“I’m not wearing uncomfortable lingerie for nothing,” I whisper.

Tom’s eyes sparkle. “Then I’ll take you on the short tour, so you don’t have to wear it any longer than necessary.”

Somehow, it’s easy to forget everything as I allow him to guide me inside the foyer in the direction of the righthand staircase. The only thing—the most important thing—is that we get this over with so I can extinguish the need for release inside of me.

Only then will I be able to focus on other things.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, yeah. This is probably the most explicit love scene I’ve ever written, and it sort of got away from me, but I hope it meets your approval. Sorry for the wait! Thanks for reading, everyone!

Our tour doesn’t really classify as a tour, just a walk up the curving staircase to the first-floor gallery, with Tom pointing at the doors to guest rooms—four of them—in the ovular space. He mentions, offhanded, that there’s a fifth and sixth on the upper level. I figure there must be more underneath the main level where we had dinner, but I don’t dwell on it. I’m not here to look at the ostentatious architecture, I’m here to look at—no, drink up and take my fill of—a handsome man.

He opens wide two dark cherry doors, stepping aside to let me precede him into the room. When I’m past the threshold in the sedate, neutral-toned sitting room, he steps in behind me and shuts the door with a quiet snap. I whirl around… well, attempt to whirl around to face him, but he’s already there, his warmth pressing against my back, long-fingered hands digging into my hips to shove us forward. His hard excitement pushes into my ass as we walk in step with each other toward the giant bed across the huge open room, sending a bright shot of heat straight to my core.

I expect him to continue, to lay me down on the bed or at least sit me there, but suddenly I’m cold, the room’s ambient air prickling my skin with the abruptness of his disappearance. Swallowing a deep breath, I turn around and look for Tom, finding him at a sideboard, pouring amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a matching glass. _It must be whisky_ , I think, because isn’t that what these types of men always drink from their sideboards?

Tom lifts the glass and sucks in a mouthful as he turns back to me, his eyes alight with hunger. It’s carnal. Animalistic. Wolfish and starving and thirsty at the same time, like I’m an oasis in the middle of the desert. I’ve seen that look before—not on him, though, or even another man.

A Persian leopard, starved and bony, loped into our camp the night my team arrived north of Mosul, Iraq on my first overseas assignment. Our guides said it was rare for them to come down off the mountains, but its hunger must have driven it into our camp in search of food. We were warned not to feed or pay it any mind, but it started yowling in the middle of the night, just outside our barracks. I couldn’t imagine the pangs of hunger it must be suffering to make such sounds. Of course, my own cat back home lets me know he’s hungry—constantly—despite being five pounds overweight. But this sound… this was different. It was the sound of dying.

I tossed and turned for a few hours and couldn’t find any sleep. Fed up and frustrated that no one else seemed to care, I threw my covers off, pulled on my boots and scrounged around our makeshift mess hall for something to feed it. My offering was likely to be nothing more than a single drop of rain in a drought, but I couldn’t lay there all night listening to the poor animal starve to death.

Resources were precious for us in the middle of nowhere, but one of the Marine cooks pulled a shank of meat out of the cooler and handed it to me anyway. I ventured out into the moonlight, ready to coax the leopard close enough that he would smell or see me with the meal. He did, right way, and carefully picked his way across the rocky, sandy ground. His focused eyes glinted in lantern light as he walked, his large tongue licking his mouth in anticipation of the meager feast.  

I’d never seen another living thing so ravenous up until that point in my life. Sure, I’ve seen hungry animals and, unfortunately, people since, but that leopard is the closest I come to understanding what Tom must be thinking as he prowls with feline grace across the room and sets his whisky tumbler on the table beside a plush couch.

But is Tom really the leopard, preparing to devour me to slake his hunger? Or was it me last night, lured in with dessert, starving for positive male attention? Have I sealed my own fate by accepting a solicitous hand? I shudder at the thought, knowing the story with the leopard ends with a gunshot ricocheting off the valley and a dead animal at my feet, Colonel Baker shoving his sidearm into a holster with a meaningful glare in my direction.

I shake my head, telling myself I need to find better analogies. For my own sanity, I can’t let myself think about anything other than the man in front of me right now.

Tom pulls his coat off and tosses it over the back of the couch, then pulls the unknotted tie slow, agonizingly slowly, though his collar and drops it on top of the coat. He does all of this while watching me, staring, consuming me with his half-lidded eyes. I lock my knees and try to resist the urge to stand at attention under his assessments. Nothing about his actions make him feel like a drill instructor, but there’s something in the air between us, something controlling and dominant that flicks against my independent nature.

“Take your heels off,” he says, eyeing my feet.

“Excuse me?” I ask.

He laughs. “Or keep them on, if you like. I love fucking women in gorgeous heels.”

I gulp. It’s the first time he’s used such coarse language, and I want to know how he can make something so vulgar sound so hot.

“But I can see you’re uncomfortable in them,” he adds again.

“You don’t know that.”

He meets my eyes. “Yes, I do. The way you move in them isn’t the same as a woman who has had lots of practice wearing them. I want you to be comfortable. Well… within reason, of course.”

“Fine,” I bite out, kicking off my shoes and squishing my stocking-covered feet in the thick carpeting. I don’t know if I’m angrier that I can’t convincingly pull off the air of refinement I wanted or that he can read into it so well. What else can he figure out about me?

Tom mirrors my actions, bending down to remove his own footwear to reveal the dark polka dotted socks beneath. I giggle at the sudden frivolity of the design considering his otherwise straight-laced costume. He looks up at me from under his heavy brows as he stuffs the shoes under the side table.

“What’s so amusing?”

“Your socks,” I say. “They’re inconsistent to your outright demeanor.”

He chuckles. “Ah, yes. Perhaps there’s more to me than I present to the public.”

“Maybe,” I reply.

He stands to his full height, eyes back on me as he reaches for his cufflinks and carefully removes each one.  They’re heavy and metal, I can tell by the way he palms them in his hand, and they make substantial _clunks_ on the table beside his whisky glass when he sets them there.

I belatedly realize he hasn’t offered me a drink, and doesn’t seem to have any interest in procuring one for me. Instead, he grabs his left sleeve and rolls it up his forearm, moving slowly and elegantly to expose the flexing and releasing muscles beneath the cloth. Then he repeats the action with the opposite sleeve, until both sit at his elbows.

He’s not a slight man, that much I know from the press of his body to mine at times through the evening, but his forearms are more than I imagined. He’s lean and lithe like a jungle cat, and as I can see now, with just as much powerful musculature honed from a great deal of physical activity.

Though I never pictured him a weakling—in fact, he has never strayed from his golden godly image in my head—the reality is so much _more_. Now I know he can hurt me, in more ways than one. And those personal bodyguards lurking around outside? They’re decoration, nothing more.

I lick my lips, thinking further and imagining how else he might look, waiting for him to remove more clothing. For him to come over to me and undress me, too.

But he doesn’t.

Strangely, he lowers himself onto the couch and rests back against it.  He spreads out, seemingly taking up the whole space with his body, long arms laying across the backrest and his knees bent and legs spread wide to showcase his groin in a welcoming, purely sexual display. Tom neither invites me nor disinvites me from sitting with him, but he reaches for the amber liquor on the table and sips it before resting back and staring again. The tumbler, I note, stays in his hand, balancing on the back of the couch.

I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat, not knowing where to go and what to do. This man is so different from any other I’ve encountered. He’s a mystery, and for the first time in my life, my sexual confidence evaporates into thin air.

I wonder if he’s done it on purpose, to unsettle me. To make me so uncomfortable that my carefully constructed personal control goes right out the window. So that he might get something incendiary out of me about who I am or what I do.

“Take your dress off,” he commands like a man who is always obeyed.

 _Okay, then_ , I think and reach for the zipper under my arm. “Wouldn’t you like to do the honors?”

He shakes his head, takes another sip. “No. I’d rather watch you, watching me. Keep your eyes on me.”

My skin enflames at his words. I’m trained to follow orders in certain aspects of my life, but most of my life is something I rule. I control what I do and what I don’t. Yesterday, before I met him, I would have never dreamed of allowing a man to issue me such commands. In fact, my ex and I fought about it constantly, because I was never willing to give up my control for him.

Tom makes it too easy to obey him, and it sends a funny fluttering insect into my belly. A part of me wants to protest—rebel—but it’s impossible to do so. I’ve already sunk too far into his world. It started the moment I readily followed his orders to show up in a black dress and heels tonight.

No wonder he expects me to follow other commands.

“I’ve always thought,” he starts, his words slurring slightly, but it’s not from drunkenness. The man in front of me is the farthest thing from alcoholic intoxication. “You can tell a lot about a person by their sartorial choices. Don’t you think?”

“I would agree with you,” I say, pulling the zipper down, making sure to hold his gaze. Heat and wet flood the expensive lacy satin between my legs. I didn’t know—I didn’t realize—

He grins mischievously. “And what have you learned about me?”

“You’re exacting. Regimented. You wear it like a uniform, like you’re in the military, and just as strict. You clearly expect it from everyone else,” I murmur. The zipper stops moving and I lift a hand and stick a finger beneath one of the sleeves holding my dress up. Then I push it down my arm, following suit with the other. I hold the fabric in place to continue. “You’re polished. You like the finer things in life, your suits aren’t something you pull off a rack. But you don’t do flamboyance, even with all your money. And the way you carry yourself in the suit, it’s like you were born in them. It’s second nature, probably because you started wearing such fine clothing when you were very young.”

I pull the dress down further, enjoying the way his eyes widen eagerly as it shifts south, revealing the lacy scallop on the edge of my bra. “Though, there’s your socks. You’re a contained man, but you let a little frivolity show through your accessories. Which tells me you’re not necessarily a hard man—”

“Oh, I guarantee you, Christine,” he says, taking another sip of his whisky, “I am rather hard.”

Glancing at his groin, I do take note of the increased tent in his trousers. Even in the shadowed room and dim light, I can see the shape of it in the black fabric. I lick my lips again and he shifts his hips in discomfort.

“Eyes on mine, darling,” he orders.

I drag my gaze up to meet his again and I see steely reserve. There are other observations I can tell him—things I’ve picked up through the evening—though it’s not necessarily related to his clothing. But I choose to draw my cards back, keeping them close to my chest. I know better than to reveal my hand this early in the game.

His eyes flicker down my body, as though trying to move the fabric I’m sliding south faster than my current speed. I bite my lip and chuckle, taking a breath. He never told me how quickly to drop it, so that’s his fault.

“You don’t wear dresses often,” he starts. “But you wear them more regularly than you do the heels. And the heels—well, they’re still sensible though they’re tall and expensive. So though you might never wear them again, you prefer quality.”

I nod. “That’s easy.”

He laughs and leans forward, a shadow passing across his face in the room’s low light. Somehow, he seems more mysterious. More unpredictable. “You didn’t dress like the other women here tonight. Not flashy. Your hem is respectable and elegant, but still at a length to reveal your wonderful, shapely legs. And the neckline, as it is open and across your shoulders is a sophisticated grace as opposed to showing everything.”

 _There were some plunging necklines tonight_ , I think. But I thought that’s what he preferred.

“And what does that say about me, exactly?” I ask.

“You’re private. You keep things to yourself. You have secrets, probably lots of them, that you only reveal to a few people.”

I draw in a breath and let it out. He’s stabbing at thin air, hoping something sticks. I know he is, because I know he’s looking for something. For some tell that he’s right. Or, perhaps, for something more incriminating. What I’m wearing could mean anything. Maybe someone else picked it all out for me and I’m just wearing it? Maybe I just don’t like showing my body off?

He seems to read my mind and stands up, finishing off his glass of whisky and leaving it on the table beside the couch. Then he saunters over, walking around me, appraising me, his hands resting on mine where they hold my dress around my torso. “You like showing your body off, so you don’t cover up for that reason.”

“Is that what you think?”

The man shrugs, stopping in front of me. He’s close enough again that I can feel his heat radiating over my body, enveloping me. I haven’t taken my eyes off him, except for the few seconds he spent behind me, and now he’s staring into mine. The scent of warm whisky wafts around us and I cant toward him, searching for the feel of him brushing my skin, for a taste of the spicy liquor on his tongue.

“You, however, understand the concept of intrigue,” he interjects between us, stopping me mid-movement.

The fact that I’m doing all of this for him—acquiescing and undressing—and still haven’t kissed the man doesn’t escape my notice. But his refusal to inch forward and claim my mouth has nothing to do with an aversion or some rule about not kissing because it’s too personal. No, he’s stringing me along, providing more ‘intrigue.’ Winding me up tighter, making me wetter.

And he’s barely touched me.

I’m so out of my league, it’s ridiculous.

He grins as I shift away from him. “Sadly, mystery is a misunderstood art and lost on so many today. Don’t you think, Christine?”

I hum my answer, entranced by the way his lips curve to form words, wishing I could find the nerve to stop this unrelenting tease and get down to business.

“You _do_ want to impress and show it all off for someone special, but not just for anyone. It’s probably the sexiest thing I’ve learned about you tonight.”

“Really?”

He pushes down on my hands, lowering the dress further, slipping his fingers around my waist to tug the fabric over the flare of my hips. Faintly, I feel the garment pool at my feet, but I don’t look down to confirm it. I couldn’t even if I wanted. I am transfixed in his gaze, my breath catching as his eyes dip to peek at my lingerie.

A sly grin pulls at his lips. “It’s why you went to all the trouble to wear something like this.”

He leans over me and his teeth nip at my shoulder, catching the strap of my bra to drag it until it falls down my arm. I shiver at the light tormenting sensation as it prickles my skin and hardens my nipples uncomfortably against the satin and lace bra.

God, I’ve never wanted someone to touch me so much.

But he doesn’t. No, instead he retreats a bit, and stares down at me again. “Am I close?”

“I would say you’re definitely warm,” I reply.

“Good, because you should never be ashamed to show this gorgeous body off,” he says, hands motioning to me, not physically touching, but I feel like his fingers are already on me, digging into my flesh.

I gasp.

His smile only grows more wicked. “But then I must ask,” he says, bringing the thumb of his right hand up to my breast. There he lightly flicks the puckered nipple through the fabric, then cups the whole thing in one long fingered hand. I moan at the new sensation, and at the size of his hand holding me so tenderly. It takes everything for me to open my eyes that have inexplicably fluttered closed.

“Ask what?” I say on a parched tongue.

“This is an expensive set of lingerie,” he continues. I do not doubt that he’s a connoisseur of the finest lingerie the world offers, as seen on many different women. “And I wonder why you’ve spent so much money on something for one night. You don’t outwardly strike me as a frivolous person, so it makes me think you might have purchased this set for someone else and since you haven’t been able to use it, you’ve brought it out tonight.”

Surprisingly, I don’t bristle. I don’t even cool. But it does make me nervous that he’s bringing up my ex again. “They were purchased this afternoon.”

His eyebrows shoot up at my admission. “Is that so?”

“With money left over from selling the engagement ring,” I admit.

He gives me a low, throaty chuckle, clearly delighted at the information. “Mercenary girl.”

“You have no idea.”

“I approve,” he says, “though I’ll take even more pleasure ripping it to shreds.”

A part of me wants to stop him, but I don’t because I want him to rip them from my body, too. I want him to throw me back on the bed and have his way with me, anyway he’d like, and end this ridiculous teasing that has me all in knots and in desperate need of release.

To prove his point, his hand tickles down my bare stomach, bypassing the garter belt sitting low on my waist, and finally hooks on the front of the skimpy matching knickers. With one deft movement, lace and elastic bite hard into my skin as a _riiiiiiip_ resounds throughout the quiet room. He stands back, admiring his handiwork and the angry red skin where the offending material pulled apart. Then he balls the shreds into his hand and tosses it aside like rubbish.

Somehow, he’s completely left the garter belt in place. Now I _know_ my league isn’t even close to his. Oceans don’t just separate us. No. He’s somewhere out in the stratosphere and I’ve practically dug a grave six feet down and that still wouldn’t explain how far apart from each other we are. And he seems to know that, too, but it doesn’t diminish the hunger in his expression. Nor does it stop his tongue sweeping out and licking his lips.

“I could have easily stepped out of them,” I offer.

“Expedience,” he replies, drawing a finger down the length of one of my garters. “You would have needed to remove these darlings, which I don’t want, and I do so hate waiting.”

I laugh. “You’re the one making us wait.”

“Am I?”

“You’re playing with your food.”

He throws his head back and laughs a hearty laugh, though it’s tight with something else. Something I can’t put my finger on. “Perhaps I am.”

“If you play too long, your food will get cold,” I joke.

The finger on my garter sweeps back up my inner thigh, the rest of his paw joining in and cupping my sex, kneading the mound with his palm. I suck in air and claw at his arm, not expecting the intimate intrusion. It’s not harsh or painful by any means, but I’m unprepared, somehow. All I want him to do is take the ache away, though the strength of his hand makes it worse. Makes me squirm in agony.

Two fingers slip past my folds and draw up, resting for a second over my clit, giving me a moment to relax against his hand. Then he lightly pinches the nervy bundle between his fingers and thumb. Heat floods me all over, the ratchet in my belly tightening further, and I squeal. It’s a sound I’ve never heard come out of me.

 _Ever_.

No man has ever inspired such a reaction. I almost want to cry. Not from pain, but from the unmistakable, uncontrollable surge of bliss rocketing through my body.

I knew he’d worked me up. I know I’m starved for this kind of attention. I just hadn’t understood how much I needed this. How much I _want_ this.

“I don’t think…” he murmurs, stepping closer to me now, invading all my space, until I can smell the whisky on his breath again. Warm breaths ruffle a bit of hair that’s fallen in my face as I meet his eyes. “I don’t think we’re in any danger of cooling off.”

I smile as his forehead presses to mine and our noses brush, his lips hovering delectably over mine but refusing to close the distance. “You’re a very dangerous man.”

His fingers move again, though this time it’s his other hand reaching behind me to unsnap the closure of my bra. “Darling, you have no idea.”

Except I do. I have a whole lot of an idea.

But I ignore it, push it to the furthest reaches of my brain. I don’t have enough blood there to think about it right now. Everything else has diverted elsewhere in my body, flushing my skin and shaking my limbs while his marvelous fingers continue to rub and circle and tweak their way over my sex.

“Fuck,” I groan, my muscles tightening and my back arching until I push into him. Then he’s gone, just like that. The offending hand, responsible for such pleasure, cups my cheek tenderly. His thumb presses to my lips and I smell myself on him, tasting a hint of my muskiness.

“Such a dirty word from such a pretty mouth,” he whispers.

Then his lips cover mine, stealing what little oxygen I have left from my lungs, nibbling, crushing, savoring. First my lips, then dropping to my chin, my jaw. An earlobe. He’s taken a defibrillator to my cold beat-up heart and shocked it back to life, the thing now warm and jackhammering against my sternum in a painful tattoo.

It’s all I can do to remain upright, but his arms are around me, crushing me to his chest, hands questing lower, dipping into the hollow of my low back and then sweeping over the rise of my ass. His palms flatten against me, then he digs his fingers into my ample flesh, lifting and pulling me against the hardness hidden in his trousers.

I moan an oath, wrapping my legs for leverage around his hips, grinding into his cock. Fuck. I need him to fill me, take away the emptiness. I need him to finish what he started. I need… _him_. I need _this._

He carries me over to the bed and tosses me back and I bounce, looking up at him from half-drunk eyes. Never has he looked more like a god than he does at this moment, covered in shadow, haloed by the lamp light behind him. He’s strong, fearsome, and oh so powerful. For the briefest moment, I consider the hard look on his attractive features to be one of indecision. Or, perhaps, consternation. As though he knows he can hurt me, a mere mortal, and has second thoughts.

But it’s gone in a flash when he blinks and brushes it off with a shake of his head.

I toss my head, throwing the hair out of my eyes as I attempt to scramble back a bit, inviting him to follow. He doesn’t; he grabs my ankles and pulls me down to the edge of the soft mattress before stepping between my parted legs and covering me with his body.

I groan at the weight against me, closing my eyes as his lips make a sparse trail from my neck down to my sex, the glorious rasp of his beard scratching against my skin. Once at his destination, he kneels reverently on the floor, hands pushing at the inside of my thighs to open them further, nipping at the velvet crease between my leg and my mound. My muscles stretch and pull, then relax as he holds me in position and delves his tongue tentatively past my folds.

I reach for him, running my hands through his soft hair, trying to get him to look up at me. I need him to fill me. I need the ache and the fullness. But he ignores the mewl and soft entreaty of, “Tom,” on my lips. Moaning in bliss and torment, I succumb to him, knowing he is a man with a purpose.

My hips rise at his concentrated attention, grinding with him as his teeth and tongue take over an intricate dance against my clit. Twinges of pleasure and pain alternate with nips and sucking pulses of his mouth, building the itchy tightness in my abdomen higher until my breath hitches—that strange moment of silence as explosives take in the air around them and release.

The introduction of one finger shoving inside my wetness, followed by another, is what detonates the bomb. He crooks them together inside me and bites hard with lip-sheathed teeth on my clit. It’s like he’s thrown a lit match in a puddle of gasoline and I’m a fireball.

I scream my release, fisting hands in the bedclothes beside me, holding on lest I float away into the ether like ash. His free hand settles flat against my belly, pressing me down into the mattress, adding an additional tether, keeping me still as he draws out his ministrations. I’m on fire, the flames consuming—scorching—everything in their path, demolishing any remaining misgivings I have about coming tonight followed by the lingering worries I have about him.

In this moment, I know I would go to the depths of Hades for him if only he’d do that to me again.

He has but to ask.

I gasp for air, wrung out and weak as aftershocks quake through my body. He crawls from the floor like a panther, stalking, ready to devour me again, holding himself on fists over me.  A wolfish smirk curls his mouth—that beautiful, perfect, talented mouth—and he kisses me.

“You taste divine,” he whispers against me, his tongue pushing past my lips, begging entrance and enticing my own tongue to follow along. It’s lazy at first as I convince my limbs to wake up from their haze of ecstasy, but it doesn’t take long for him to stoke the fire again. Not with his hard body pressed into me like this.

I moan against his lips and lay my hand on his chest. “Why are you still dressed?”

He laughs, tweaking my right nipple. I arch into him with a moan. “Shall I remedy that?” he asks.

“I think you should,” I murmur, my fingers playing with the topmost buttons on his shirt.

Tom pulls away and kneels above me again, closely watching me as he reaches for the buttons. He makes swifter work of them than I would have ever been able to, tugging the tails of the shirt out of his trousers and pushing it off his shoulders.

I drag my eyes from his, dropping to look at his pecs and lower to his stomach, and can’t help but bite my lip in satisfaction. I knew he had to look something like this, but I didn’t plan for something that gorgeous. Here, too, he’s lightly bronzed, like he spends time in the sun on the regular, and with his shirt off. Not that it should be so ridiculous; rich people always travel. He probably has his own island. What glorious sun god doesn’t?

When we finally latch gazes, I realize he’s been watching me for my seal of approval, too. It’s both endearing and confusing; how can a man be so confident in himself—and know he looks like this—but require assurance that he meets my expectations?

It’s a crack in his façade, one I cling to as he bends to the side and opens the drawer on the nightstand. Even though I know this is a onetime deal, he’s confirmed with one simple look that I’m more important than some dime-a-dozen call girl at a hotel. I’m not some vessel solely here for his pleasure—or for other motives. And that, perhaps, is the most intoxicating and gratifying thing about all of this.

I tremble beneath him and release a sigh. He glances at me as he withdraws a foil wrapper from the drawer and tosses it on the bed beside us.

“What?” I ask.

Tom lowers onto the bed, on the other side of me, resting on his elbow. “I’m quite enjoying how responsive you are.”

“How could I not be?” I giggle, throwing a leg over his hip and pushing him down onto the bed as I use my weight to flip us over. Except I’m only successful because he lets me do it. There’s no doubt in my mind that I would have failed if he didn’t want to do this.

I settle on the seat of his pelvis, resting against his cock and sucking in a breath at the friction of his trousers against my oversensitive core. Jesus.  His hands splay on my thighs and knead up into my hips, holding me in my position to scrape and grind more forcefully against me. My eyes roll to the back of my head—literally—and I shut them, biting my lip to stop a moan from ripping from my mouth.

“Take my trousers off, darling,” he orders, back in control of the situation.

Rubbing myself against him one last time, I watch with pleasure as he grits his teeth and his eyes flutter closed for the hastiest of moments.

“Keep doing that and I won’t last.”

“Shame,” I hum and move to make short work of his belt, fly and trousers. He lifts his ass to help me in removing all the cloth covering his lower half, but that’s all the help I get. He seems perfectly content watching me crawl back up his legs and stop at the impressive, jutting cock now twitching against the ridged plane of his stomach with each slow breath he takes.

Even that’s beautiful, like they molded him out of clay to achieve perfection in girth and length and color. It’s almost unfair.

I reach out for him, prepared to lick him from root to tip to taste his salty skin, but he flips me onto my back again. Before I have the time to stop him, he’s pinned my hands to the mattress above my head.  Then he bites my lower lip before diving for another kiss.

“I warned you, did I not?” he says, his voice low, rumbly, and menacing, but it shoots straight back down to my core and deflates my lungs.

“I don’t mind if you come in my mouth.”

Tom laughs lightly. “No. I’ve thought of nothing else but fucking you since we met, and I’m not wasting this on your mouth right now, no matter how beautiful or sweet it is.”

I suck in a breath, staring up at him with wide eyes. The way he makes it sound, I feel like he intends for more after this. Like this isn’t the one night stand I thought it was; sure, if I have my say, we’re going to learn every inch of each other’s bodies tonight, and probably into the early morning. But his words and his tone make it sound like he’s considering more.

He sits up above me, thighs on either side of my waist, his erection proud and terribly underserved. He throws me a bone, though, and it’s the condom foil he places gently in my hand. I raise an eyebrow mischievously and grin.

“Don’t tempt me to put you over my knee and spank you.” He’s teasing, but not really. I hear the steeliness in his voice and see the flinty stare. He’s daring me to make a move, but I don’t think I’d regret either outcome.

I rip the foil open with my teeth and reach for him. A hiss escapes his tight lips and I dart a glance up at him, only to see his facial muscles straining with control. Something about this does things to me I can’t describe. It makes me need him more, need him between my legs, but it also instills a level of triumph—no, of _power_ —in me. _I’ve_ been able to drive a gorgeous man to this point, just by being _me_. Not from acting like someone else to please a stupid fiancé. Or playing a role designed for subterfuge.

This is all me.

He snatches my hands away from him as soon as I’ve finished rolling it down his shaft, not allowing me the opportunity to push his limits a little further. Again, he pins my wrists over my head and rests against me, our skin warm and soft, practically melting into each other. I shift beneath him, open my legs wider, inviting him to find a comfortable seat against me. The action draws his hardness to my aching core, slipping tortuously through my slick heat.

“Please,” I moan, pressing my head back into the mattress and closing my eyes. His lips suck on my throat, on my pulse, tongue darting out with the rapid beat.

“Please what?” he asks. A hand leaves my wrists and skates down an arm, down my side to my hip and thigh. He pulls my leg up and sets it around him, further shifting us both into optimal position.

I pant against him, circling my hips to entice him along. He is immovable. “Quit playing with me, Tom. Fuck me. _Please_.”

“Of course, darling,” he murmurs into my skin, shifting up, thrusting into me with one long fluid movement. It’s a bittersweet invasion, large and stretching and filling, but slightly sharp and deliciously painful on the edges. He stills for the briefest of moments, meeting my gaze in search of confirmation that he can continue.

I roll my hips against him, and it’s all the information he needs, his hands flying to them, digging into the flesh as he sets an even but pounding rhythm. I am at once breathless and panting with pleasure, begging again for release with every thrust that grinds and circles against my throbbing clit. We’re both on a hair trigger, but my orgasm still sneaks up on me out of nowhere, starting first at the base of my spine and detonating outward to every inch of me, my body tensing and rigid beneath him.

“Jesus fuck,” I bite out, scratching at his back, searching again for some other anchor than his hips holding me steady. I watch him, seeing the concentration on his brow, the light sheen of perspiration gathering and glistening on his skin, and it triggers a smaller aftershock, clutching and contracting around him.

The clenching of my body proves too much for us both and his movements stutter, a guttural groan erupting from the lowest part of his chest and rumbling out of his throat. He sounds like that leopard suddenly, at once dying of starvation and completely sated, sinking his teeth into my shoulder as he empties himself into me.

At once, I understand. I’m full of him, deliriously relaxed and twitching with satisfaction, but there’s a part of me that is bottomless, needing more attention, knowing I’m never going to get my fill of this man.

It terrifies me.

He collapses on top of me, and I cling to him, lest this end before I’m ready for it to end. Tom makes no movement either, with his face buried in the crook of neck, the heat between us slowly cooling but never extinguishing.

Wordlessly, he slips away to dispose of the condom and returns to bed. He stretches out like a cat and pulls me back against him so that my ass rests comfortably in seat of his pelvis again. Never have I felt so needed or wanted—and this from a man I met a day ago. How is that even possible?

I shiver and he draws the bedcovers up around us, enveloping us in warmth, hazy euphoria and heavy limbs dragging us both down into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
